CHAPTER XX
A NIGHT OF MISERY
Bart’s announcement brought looks of blank astonishment and dismay to the faces of his chums. They had so depended on him, that, to have him go back on them in this fashion, was a shock.
“Are you sure we’re lost?” asked Ned, slowly.
“No doubt of it, in my mind,” answered Bart, and he laughed a little. The strain of keeping up the pace on a route he was not at all sure of, was harder than admitting the fact of being lost in the wilderness.
“What are we going to do?” asked Fenn, rather helplessly.
“The first thing to do will be to gather wood for a fire before it’s too dark to see,” announced Bart, with assumed if not real cheerfulness. “Then we’ll make a blaze, and eat.”
The mention of food was cheering in itself, to say nothing of the prospect of a fire, and then, too, the act of being busy took from the minds of the lads the thoughts that they were lost.
In a short time they had gathered quite a pile of wood. Some of it was dry, for it was under the low-lying branches of spruce and hemlock trees, and the snow had been kept from it. From the interior of hollow logs some “punk” was obtained, and this, together with some dead branches, that had lodged in a hollow under a big rock, made enough fuel to get a blaze started.